


Better to be Feared

by osprey_archer



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 00:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osprey_archer/pseuds/osprey_archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Budapest, November 1956. <i>Russia takes the stairs two at a time, striking his pipe against the balustrades. It dents the gilding and chips the paint. Hungary will be angry. (But it’s her fault. If she would just be good, he wouldn't have to punish her. Why can't everyone just be good?))</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Better to be Feared

Russia strides through the halls of Hungary’s Parliament, boots so loud that they almost stomp out the mutinous crowd outside. Guards and bureaucrats duck into doorways as he passes. 

Maybe he can still convince Hungary to shut her people up, like she should have weeks ago. But Russia would forgive the delay if she would just –

She won’t. She looks soft, pale hair and heart-shaped face, but her soul is a sword. 

Russia takes the stairs two at a time, striking his pipe against the balustrades. It dents the gilding and chips the paint. Hungary will be angry about that. (But it’s her fault. If she would just be good, he wouldn't have to punish her. Why can't everyone just be good?) 

Anger is good. It stills the sick churning in his stomach. 

Top of the stairs. He strides down the hall, boots muffled in the ragged carpet. Maybe he won’t find her.

 _Coward_ , he mocks himself. 

She’s playing the piano – one of Austria’s songs – behind a door near the end of the hall. 

Russia kicks open a door. The white walls are a dingy gray-pink with dawn. He kicks in another. A desk and a dead plant. Another – another – Hungary hits another wrong note – Russia kicks in the last door in the hall. 

Hungary sits at a grand piano, framed by the pink dawn in the high window. She crashes her fingers on the keys and closes her eyes, head lowered over the keys, eyelashes soft against her pale cheeks. 

“Hungary,” Russia says, blocking in the doorway. 

“Russia,” she says. She slips off the piano bench, turning her back on him and moving to the window. She scrapes it open. Cold air and shouts rush in, washing away the memory of music. 

She's insolent. Defiant. “Why?” he asks. 

She doesn't answer. Instead, she perches on the windowsill, looking at her people far below. The dawn dyes her pale face pink, like the inside of a shell. 

Russia clears his throat, deepens his voice. “Hungary,” he says, “Go out and shut them up.” 

“I couldn’t if I wanted to,” she says. She doesn’t look at him. “My people wouldn’t listen. They don’t hide whenever I walk by – unlike yours.” 

“My people love me,” Russia snaps, and strikes his pipe against the doorframe. “Don’t yours realize that they’re just hurting you?” 

Hungary’s chin lifts. “And you would rather I hurt them,” she says, wisps of hair brushing the nape of her neck. 

Russia’s stomach hurts. “Hungary, they’re _hurting_ you. It’s disloyal, and that means they aren’t your people.” She doesn’t even look at him. “Hungary. Please don’t make me punish you,” he says.

She turns to look out the window again. “ _You’re_ making you do this.”

Russia kicks the wall. “Why did you have to rebel?” he asks, pacing the Turkish carpets. The grand piano blocks his path. He kicks it too. “Why? I protect you. I’ve given you so many more friends than when it was just you and Austria. Why do you want to go back to him? I protect you better than Austria did. I’m doing this to _protect_ you.” 

Hungary glances at the pipe in his hand. Her lip curls back. 

“I am!” he shouts. 

Silence. He can hear the crowd shouting below. 

Hungary draws her legs to her chest. She’s wearing lace-trimmed trousers. She _never_ wears trousers. “This isn’t just about Austria,” she says. Her fists clench. “Who are you protecting me from? Nobody wants to hurt me but you!” 

His stomach clenches. “So you believe them, England and America and the rest of the west, when they say they won’t hurt you? They’re capitalists, imperialists, black-hearted liars! As soon as I saved them from Germany they betrayed me. They’ll fall on you like dogs when they get the chance.” 

“I can take care of myself.” 

Russia slams the pipe across the piano keyboard. Hungary winces, leaning her cheek against her knee. 

“Take care of yourself? You can’t even control your own people,” he says.

“Take care of and control are not the same thing,” Hungary says. 

The pipe slips in his sweaty hand. He almost drops it. 

He has to finish this. He jiggles the pipe. His feet seem rooted. 

“Move to a lower window,” he orders. 

“This one suits me,” says Hungary. 

He paces again, smacking the pipe against his hand. It stings. He feels he might throw up if he speaks. “Move!” 

“No.”

“The fall will hurt less if you’re lower,” he says. His voice rises. “I’m trying to help you!” 

She clenches her jaw. The sun breaks the horizon, and she turns her face to the dawn. 

Russia’s pipe cracks against Hungary’s skull. She falls. The pipe clatters on the floor. 

She doesn’t scream. He knocked her out so she wouldn’t be afraid as she fell. 

He wants to leave, but he kneels to retrieve the pipe. A couple of Hungary’s hairs cling to it, and he yanks them off and scrubs his hand on his coat. He jams the pipe in his pocket without looking at it. 

He means to leave, but he goes to the window instead. He has to shut it. The heating cost will be astronomical if he leaves it open. Paint flakes onto his hand as he grinds the window shut. 

Below, her people gather around her like ants. Her hair puddles across the pavement and her legs are sprawled. _The trousers_ , thinks Russia, _if she wore a skirt it would have flown up_. Her people close about her so tightly he can’t see her. 

And just as suddenly they scatter. Russia’s tanks have entered the square. Russia leaves the window, footsteps thudding on the broad marble stair, but the gunfire is too loud for his boots to drown out. 

***

As he leaves Parliament, half-blinded by gunpowder smoke, Russia stumbles over Hungary. 

Someone moved her into the doorway so the tanks couldn’t crush her. Not that tanks could kill her, anymore than the fall could. 

Smoke chokes the air, and gunfire rattles. Her people just dropped her, and ran off, and she’s half falling off the stairs like a corpse in _Potemkin_. 

Russia kneels next to her, wiping away the trickle of blood from her mouth with the end of his scarf. The red blossoms like carnations in the wool. Someone screams, then another: a chorus of screams cut off by sudden rat-a-tat-tat of bullets.

People will step on her if he leaves her lying across the stairs. Russia cradles her head in his hand, holding it off the cold stone. Her hair is so soft. 

Her eyelashes flutter. She coughs blood. Russia wipes it off her chin. “Hungary,” he says, although she probably can’t hear him above the falling rubble. 

A girl collapses on the stairs next to them. Her bloody tears drip on the marble. 

He won’t leave Hungary here. 

He picks her up, stepping over the weeping schoolgirl and starting across the square. Hungary’s eyes open, unfocused. Her forehead crinkles in confusion and pain. “Where are we going?”

A Russian soldier emerges from the smoke and nearly runs into Russia. Russia pulls Hungary closer to his chest. “I’m taking you home.”

She cranes her neck to look around and blanches from pain. “But this is home.” 

A bullet ruffles Russia’s hair. He almost falls, stepping on a body where he expected stone. The flesh shifts horribly beneath his foot. The body, not yet dead, cries out. 

Hungary, jostled, shivers. 

“Don’t worry,” Russia soothes. He pauses to let a tank rumble past, and kisses her forehead. “I’ll take care of you.” The body bats at his foot like a cat at a ball of yarn. Russia nudges it aside and continues. 

Hungary’s eyes squeeze shut, leaking tears. Russia caresses her hair and presses her face into his coat, and carries her safe to his house.


End file.
